MR. GRAY FURTHER DEVELOPED.
That is a grand trait of character in man, woman, or child—unselfishness. It is a trait that scarcely exists, perhaps, in its pure state; for we are selfish mortals, struggling to cut one another's throats all our lives, and coveting our neighbour's goods with a rare intensity. It is a selfish globe on which we are spinning, and it is natural to think deeply—think altogether, perhaps—of our loves, our successes, our chances of fame, fortune, happiness, rather than of other people's. For the reason that it has been our lot to drop upon an exception to this rule—as near an exception as this rule sans exception will allow—do we hold Mattie a first place in our affections, and think her story—approaching its turbulent stage—worth the telling.
Springing from a low estate, and saved as by a miracle—this flower put forth strange buds and blossoms after its transplanting. It outlived the past, and turned quickly to the light, as though light had been its craving from the first, and only a better chance, and a purer moral atmosphere, were needed to wholly change it. Mattie passed from evil to good swiftly, grateful to the hands that had been outstretched to save her; the untaught childhood became swiftly the days of grateful girlhood—and from girlhood to the gentle, honest womanhood, that thought of others' happiness, and strove hard for happiness in those she loved, was but another step, easily made and never repented of.
She did all for the best, and strove hard to make the best of everything—for others. We know no better heroine than this, and I am very doubtful if we care for one better educated or of higher origin. And yet, heaven be thanked, not a model heroine, who was always in the right!
Mattie removed to her father's apartments in Union Road, Brunswick Street, New Kent Road. Brunswick Street is an artery that lets the wild blood of Great Dover Street into the New Kent Road—a quiet street by day, but subject to scared strangers at night in search of the medical students who locate here in legions. Union Road is on the right of Brunswick Street, and a near cut, if you are fortunate enough not to lose yourself, to Horsemonger Lane Gaol, though what you may want there is more your business than ours. Mr. Gray rented the two top rooms of a small house in Union Road, the sitting room provided with a sofa bedstead, which was henceforth to be of service to Mattie, when the day's duties were over, and Mr. Gray had finished his praying.
Here settled down the new-found father and child, and began "home" once more. Here Mattie learned by degrees to understand her father, to appreciate the many good qualities which he possessed, and to "make allowance"—as she always made allowance—for the few bad ones, which he possessed also, minister of the gospel as he termed himself.
They agreed very well together; there was little to disturb the even tenor of their way; and it fortunately happened that Mr. Gray, who was fond of argument, was blessed with a daughter who always shunned it, when the topics did not directly affect her. Mr. Gray, on the whole, was a little disappointed in his daughter—agreeably disappointed, we might have said, had not the discomfiture been so apparent on his features for a while. He was a man fond of making converts; it had been his profession, and he had met with success therein. He had promised himself the pleasure of saving his daughter from the dangers and temptations of the world, and he had found one who was out of danger and as above temptation as he was. From Mrs. Watts' account, subsequently from Mr. Wesden's, he had been led to expect a very different daughter to this; a girl who had run the streets for eleven years—who had been a friendless stray upon those streets, a thief and beggar at intervals when honesty did not pay—who had afterwards left her master's house under suspicion of a grave character—was likely to be a wilful, vicious specimen of womanhood, and worthy of his earnest efforts to subdue. Though he would not have owned it to himself, yet the belief in Mattie being unregenerate and defiant had added an intensity to his search for her; since his own better life, he had been ever in search of a thoroughly fine specimen of impenitence to practise upon, and now even his own daughter had disappointed him!
He discovered that she was a regular attendant at chapel—not even at church, to whose forms he had the true dissenter's objection—that she read her Bible regularly, and took comfort from its pages—that she was gentle, charitable, kind, unselfish, everything that he would have liked to make her by his intense love and application, and which he had found ready-made to hand.
He returned thanks for all this in his usual manner, but there was an occasional blankness of expression on his countenance; he was truly glad to have discovered his daughter, but he found that she was never to owe him an immense debt of gratitude for her reformation, and he had built upon that whenever they were thrown together, father and child, at last. Beyond his home he must look once more for the obdurate specimen that he could attack, follow up, analyze and dissect, with the gusto of a surgeon over "as fine a case as ever he saw in his life!"
But that home—in a very little time what a different place it was to him! He found in Mattie all that he could have made of her, and after awhile he was more than content. He was a man who made but little show of earthly affection, and possibly deceived Mattie, who took his love for duty more often than he wished, though it was his pride to abjure all evidence of earthly affection, and to consider himself, as he termed it, above it. He was a man who deceived himself by this—people have that peculiar trait of character now and then, and place credence in their own impossibilities.
Mr. Gray was a lithographer by trade—a man who would have earned more money had not his preaching interfered with his work, and had he not been rather too particular for a business man upon what work he engaged himself. A crotchety, irritable being, who brought his religion into his business, and, therefore, occasionally muddled both. On one occasion he had been horrified by the receipt of an order to lithograph several scenes from the last new pantomime, to be exhibited on broadsheets outside the theatre-doors, and in tobacconists' shops; and having declined to be an agent in such a "Worke of the Beast," had been dismissed from the staff of a firm which he had faithfully-served for many years. He had lived hard after that, known what it was to be penniless and fireless, and almost bootless, but those unpleasant sensations had their comforts for him—they were evidences of his sacrifice for his character's sake, and he had fought on doggedly till other employment came, which brought his head above water. He was a man who never gave way in his opinions, or sacrificed them for his personal convenience—a disagreeable man more often than not, but a man respected amongst his chapel-circle, and who, when once understood—that was not often, however—was generally liked. A man who dealt in hard truths, and had not invariably the gentlest method of distributing them; but a man who loved to see justice done to all oppressed, and did his best after his own way.
His first attempt to do justice, after Mattie's acquaintance with him, was in Mattie's favour. He understood all the reasons for Mattie's departure from Great Suffolk Street, and he saw where Mr. Wesden had been deceived, and in what manner he had been led by degrees to form a false estimate of Mattie's conduct.
He was a fidgety man, we have implied—more than that, he was an excitable and restless man.
"I must see that Mr. Wesden again—we must both see him, Mattie," he said one evening.
"Oh! I can never face him," said Mattie, in an alarmed manner, "after all that he has thought of me. I could not bear to ask him to confess that he was in the wrong, if he will not confess it of his own free will."
"But he shall, my dear!"
"I can't explain the robberies—can't prove that I was innocent of all implication in them. I was a thief once, and he will never forget that."
"Won't he?" said Mr. Gray, decisively; "we'll see about that. I'll rouse him, my dear, depend upon it. The first opportunity I have, I'll call upon that man, and—rouse him."
"I hope not."
Mattie was at work at the fireside; she had taken to dress-making again, amongst a new connection of chapel-goers introduced by her father, and Mr. Gray was busy at his lithography. He was working hard into the night, doing extra work, in order that he might have all the next week free for a preaching expedition amongst the colliers, and he did not turn from his work to express his opinion; on the contrary, bent more earnestly over it.
"It's no good hoping, my dear, I have made up my mind; he hasn't acted fairly by you—he hasn't made atonement—I must talk to him presently."
Mattie was glad of the postponement, and hopeful that her father, in his multiplicity of engagements, would forget his determination—a strange hope, for Mr. Gray never forgot anything.
"What kind of man is this Mr. Wesden, Mattie?" he asked; "I have only seen him once, for a few minutes. Hard, isn't he?"
"Sometimes. He has altered very much lately."
"A worldly man—fond of money—grasping, in fact. Such a man is hard to impress. I'll have a try at him, though."
"He's a very good man, father," Mattie said; "you must remember that he saved me from the streets, and that for years and years was very good and kind to me."
"Yes, yes—I shall pay him back some day—but he must be worldly, I should think, and in return for all his goodness I'll make a good man of him—see if I don't! I suppose you used to open on Sundays in Great Suffolk Street?"
"Never."
"Hum—that's well. Not so bad as I thought. Did he go to chapel of a Sunday, now?"
"To church—St. George's."
"Hum—that's not so bad. Not much credit in making a better man of him," he muttered; "but I'll—rouse him!"
The next day he neglected his work on purpose to attempt the experiment. He was successful enough, for there was a rough eloquence inherent in him, and he had a fair cause to plead; and the result was, that the roused Mr. Wesden made his appearance arm in arm with Mr. Gray at Mattie's home.
"I've got him!" said Mr. Gray, triumphantly; "here's Mr. Wesden, Mattie. He has come to say how very sorry he was for all that parted you and him—haven't you, sir?"
"Very sorry," said Mr. Wesden, looking at Mattie askance; "I've been thinking of it a long while—yes, Mattie, very sorry!"
He held out both hands to her, and Mattie ran to him, clasped them in her own, shook them heartily, and then burst out crying on his shoulder.
"Oh! my first father!—I didn't think that you would believe wrong of me all your life!"
"No—and it was very wrong—Mattie. And all will be right now—you and your father must come and see us very often."
"Yes."
She turned to her father eagerly, but Mr. Gray was at his lithography, bending closely over his work, and apparently taking no heed of this reconciliation. He had done his share of duty, and so his interest had vanished.
"Father—you hear?"
"I don't care about much company—when we've nothing better to do than idle our time away, perhaps," was the far from suave reply to this.
"My daughter and yours are old friends, Mr. Gray," said Mr. Wesden, almost entreatingly.
"Mattie won't care about much company herself—and I very much doubt if—if that young person you allude to—is exactly fitting for my daughter, whose character I am anxious to model after my own ideas of what is truly womanly."
Mattie looked up at this; her father was strange in his manner that night, and he perplexed her.
"Am I not truly womanly now, sir?" she asked, with a merry little laugh. She was in high spirits that night.
Mr. Gray softened.
"You are a very good girl, Mattie—a very good girl indeed; there are only a few little alterations necessary," he added, as though he was speaking of some marble statue whose corners he might round off with a chisel at his leisure.
"And you, sir," said Mattie, turning to Mr. Wesden again, "don't think any harm of me now! The robberies—the talk with Mr. Hinchford—" she added, with a faint blush.
"What was that?" asked Mr. Gray, with renewed alacrity.
"Foolishness—all foolishness on my part," said Wesden; "how could I have acted so? And yet, when it came to being out all night, the fancies turned to truths, it seemed. Ah! no matter now."
"No matter now. Oh! I am very happy. Will you sit down here for awhile, and tell me about Harriet and yourself—and she who was always so kind to me?"
"And thought well of you to the last. We wrangled once or twice about that—the only thing we ever had to quarrel about, Mattie, in all our lives together."
"Sit down and tell me about her—my true mother! You will excuse my father—he is very busy."
"Certainly."
And after his old dreamy stare at Mr. Gray, who appeared to have suddenly and entirely lost all interest in Mr. Wesden, he sat down by the fireside and, talked of old times—the dear old times that Mattie loved to hear about. Mattie was happy that night; her heart was lighter; her character had been redeemed to him who had mistrusted her; he was sitting again by her side—all her love for him had come back as it were, and all his cruel thoughts of her had vanished away for ever.
Mr. Wesden talked more than he used, when one particular subject was dilated on; and to have Mattie full of interest in that better half of him that had gone from life on earth to life eternal, gave brightness to his eyes, vigour to his narrative, and rendered him oblivious to time, till a deep voice behind him broke in upon the dialogue.
"It's getting late."
"Ah! it must be," said Mr. Wesden, rising. "And you'll come now, Mattie? You have forgiven me?"
"With all my heart—what there was to forgive!"
"And you'll let her come, Mr. Gray, now I have done her that justice?"
"When there's time."
Mr. Wesden departed; Mattie saw him down-stairs to the passage door, and stood watching his figure, not so active as of yore, proceeding down the dimly lighted street. When she returned to the sitting-room, she found that her father had left his work, and was sitting with his feet on the fender, rubbing the palms of his hands slowly together. He did not look round when she came in; when she had taken her seat near him, he did not look up at her. There was a change in him, which Mattie remarked, and after a little while inquired the reason for.
"Mattie," he said, suddenly, "I didn't know that you were so fond of Mr. Wesden, or I'd have never brought him here."
"Yes, I am fond of him—I am fond of all those who have been kind to me—who belong unto the past, of which he and I have been speaking to-night."
"You like him better than me?"
Mattie was too astonished to reply at once to this. She saw the reason for his sudden reserve to Mr. Wesden in a new light; she detected a new feature in him, that had heretofore been hidden. Years ago—like a far-away murmur—she could fancy that her mother spoke again of her husband's jealousy as one reason why home had been unhappy, and she had fled from it. Mr. Gray became excited. His eyes lit up, his face flushed a little, and his hands puckered up bits of cloth at his knees in a nervous, irritable way.
"I shouldn't like that man to be put ever before me in everything—to be liked better than myself—he has got a daughter of his own to love, and must not rob me of you. I can't have it—I won't have it! My life has been a very desolate one till now, and it is your duty to make amends for it, and be faithful to me in the latter days."
"You may trust me, father."
She laid her hand on his, and he turned and looked into her dark eyes, where truth and honesty were shining. He brightened up at once.
"I think I may—you'll not forget me—you'll be like a daughter to me. Yes, I can trust you, Mattie!"
This fugitive cloud was wafted away on the instant; Mattie almost forgot the occurrence, and all was well again.